


weaving in and out

by maybe_now



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, UST, probably not s3 compliant, semi-domestic, vague post-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 18:05:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybe_now/pseuds/maybe_now
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy doesn't get machines. Raven doesn't get books.</p><p>Sometime, maybe, they'll get each other. </p><p> </p><p>(for personaeleven on tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	weaving in and out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [personaeleven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/personaeleven/gifts).



> for personaeleven (dunno how to link in ao3 sorry about that) 
> 
> I kind of meshed your 'mutual geeking out & getting it on' prompt and your lovely 'write whatever your heart desires' prompt

 

 

_weaving in and out_

 

 

 

 

 

If someone asked her, Raven would admit that Bellamy is more a hindrance than a help in her workshop. 

A frequent scenario:

Raven’ll ask for a specific tool (a quarter inch ratchet, once) and wait, hand outstretched, palming nothing but air, her attention whirling on, through, and past the next three steps because if she just _had_ the ratchet _four seconds ago—_

Cue a few impatient finger snaps and a few more beats of irritated impatience, until she’s looking up to yell an acerbic insult (force of habit) with the intention of grabbing it herself only to find Bellamy’s big hands hovering uncertainly over the toolbox, his brows furrowed over puzzled eyes.

 _Oh my god, you’re useless_ , she’ll say a version of, her teeth trying in vain to bite back a fond smile.

(Sometimes, she tries hard enough that she leaves bloody indents on her chapped lips.  With him, her force of will never seems to be a harsh enough deterrent.)

She doesn’t really get why he keeps coming around when he’s so unbelievably hopeless at anything technology-related.  Raven knows he’s sharper than people give him credit for, so it could be possible that he’s just trying to pick up some new knowledge, expand his skill set.

Or maybe he got tired of understanding next to nothing of her heated rants about problems she had trouble solving earlier that day.  She forgets that being a mechanic means operating in another language.

 _An engineer_ , he’ll say firmly, like a correction, all matter-of-fact in his Bellamy way. _Not a mechanic, you’re an engineer._

 _Brown girls from Mecha don’t become engineers_ , she doesn’t say.

_I had to fight harder than my whole class to get to where I was._

_They didn’t even want me in Zero-G_ , she doesn’t say.

Despite herself, his words always spark a small heat in the center of her chest, like the sounds helped tighten a loose connection in some rusty inner circuit, now allowing a tiny lightbulb to finally glow.

Sometimes she hates that glow.  She doesn’t need his validation.  She’s never needed anyone’s.

She’s clawed her way to everything she has.

(Telling herself this never is enough to dim the glow, though.)

In her workshop, he stares at her more than he works, she suspects.  She can feel his gaze like small little probes pleasantly poking into her skin, usually centered on her fingers, her hands.  

Sometimes her mouth, the curve of her neck, her pointy collarbones.

But usually her hands.

She doesn’t try to catch him in the act.  She exists in some weird limbo, both basking and stifled under his attention.

 _Just_ take _something,_ she never yells.  _I’m right here, what do you_ want _?_

The words never make it out of her mouth though they push and push.  She’ll stop them, even if it shreds her lips to pieces to keep them behind her teeth.

(She doesn’t want him to run away.) 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s always a little disconcerting when he enters his tent to see Raven crouched by the lamp she hacked together for him, novel in hand.

It’s like… seeing a fish out of water.  It’s funny how abstract a metaphor that was, back on the Ark, how it needed to be explained in Literature class _(“On Earth, there used to be…”)._

Now he regularly catches, guts, cleans, and prepares fish. Maybe life actually can be like the stories.

She’ll be burrowed in his bed—burrowed in an aggressive way, a Raven way, as if she were mad at it.

The sight—her on his mattress, taking books he discovered from the shelve she made—is too common to excuse the thrill that sings through his body at the image.

(Even after months of this, it won’t shut up.)

Bellamy will never understand why she does it.  She bites her lip and glares at the aged pages like if she concentrates hard enough, she can challenge the book into revealing its secrets. 

She’ll snap at him when he can’t refrain from releasing a small laugh. Seeing Raven trying to intimidate an inanimate object into explaining itself, well…. It’s cute.

 _You talk about these things like they’re the blueprint to the world_ , she’ll say, all grouchy and defensive edges, sharp angles against the soft blanket on his bed.

 _I don’t talk about them that often_ , he says.

He’ll receive a raised brow paired with an amused glance.

_No, you really do._

_I’m sorry,_ he never says, because he knows Raven doesn’t care for those words.

 _I’m sorry if I talk too much,_ he doesn't say _. I always forget that just because someone listens doesn’t mean they always want to._

Octavia is gone now, most days.  He saw how she chafed at first, trying to stay close after Mount Weather, back under the Ark’s thumb again.

So now, she’s become an explorer, like the ones she always begged to hear about.

 _(“Well, O, they always want to talk about how Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but they never want you to hear about Ibn Battuta, arguably the greatest Earth explorer of all time. He saw_ everything.”

“ _Everything?”_ _she’d ask, quietly, glancing around quickly, as if even her meekest syllable might escape her metal prison.)_

She brings books home for him, whenever she can, her eyes bright with adventure.

She’s the one who tells him stories— _her_ stories—now.

So although he lives alone in his tent, Octavia’s books sit in Raven’s shelf, next to table and chairs made of scrap metal that he dragged from a wreckage that were pounded into shape by Raven, sitting over the bearskin rug he and Miller had hunted, skinned, and tanned.

Bellamy managed to get his hands on one of the Ark’s tablets, one with the virtual library of all the books that had been available to him since childhood, but it cannot compare to the new experience of flipping through actual pages.

These old books, they have a scent hidden in their pages, one he’s never smelled before.  If he had to, he’d name it _Luxury_.

O found a hardcover version of Frank Herbert’s _Dune_ in a bunker four day’s on horseback away.  It was one of his favorites from the Ark’s archives, but getting to hold it is incomparable.

 _(_ Then: _“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration….”_

And now: _“Mood?  What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”_

Even books change over time.)

His days are exhausting, no matter the task.  Mind-games, politics, hunting, building—they all have their distinct tax.

Bellamy treasures the moments at night, when he settles onto his bed, reading next to Raven’s lamp.

Most often, Raven can be found sitting at their table, editing plans made by the few engineers they have, lightly scoffing here and there.

Some nights, he can feel her watching him read, her gaze like careful caresses down the languid slope of his spine, on his rough, boxy hands.

Sometimes, the slope of his nose, the planes of his face. His lips.

(He knows that he can frequently be caught mouthing his favorite passages as he comes across them.  O always made fun of him for that.)

Mostly, her gaze rests like a gentle weight on his back, and he wonders why.

 _I’ll give you anything you want_ , he burns in silence, _what do you need?_

She doesn't say anything, not about this, so neither does he. 

(He doesn't want her to run away.)

 

 

 

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> embrace the UST. love the UST. URT??? Unresolved Romantic Tension??? is that a thing. should be. they got both. 
> 
> thanks so much for your prompts, writing this was so fun for me, I haven't been so inspired in a long time.
> 
>  
> 
> \-- maybenowforeverlate on tumblr


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